My friends and I sat down on what was expected to be a historic Super Bowl XLV: 100% of the national commercials and promotions were supposed to be captioned. No, don’t check your calendar, we’re not still stuck in 1989. It IS year 2011 and this basic accessibility feature of television captioning was expected to hit the record books.

History in the Making

The National Association for the Deaf (NAD), the National Football League, and FOX Broadcasting all worked together to get captions available on all national commercials and promotions during the Super Bowl XLV. (Thank you!!) (You can read about it on NAD’s website) We all know how much these Ads cost, and how funny they can be. It also became a no-brainer to step up the accessibility around this national holiday-like event.

Bar Noise-o-Meter: “Too Loud.”

You see, it’s not just awesome for the 36 million deaf and hard of hearing people who benefit. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in a NOISY bar to watch a game and thought to yourself, “Gosh, these captions are awesome!” Yes? I thought so, too. Were you also left in the dark when some of those Super Bowl XLV commercials came on, without captions?

#Fail

You read that right. Not even halfway through 1st Quarter, the first UN-CAPTIONED commercial appeared. I thought, “Maybe it’s just me.” Pretty soon, my Facebook  wall got filled with 22 comments of, “this commercial wasn’t captioned for me, that commercial weren’t captioned, either” comments, with a lot of “same here’s.” This screenshot to the right is what my friends were responding to:

I scrolled through Twitter & Facebook for some possible explanation to clear this up. In light of this campaign, I really don’t think Doritos or Chevrolet deliberately said, “Hey. Let’s save a few dollars and not caption commercial #2 of 3.” Especially for a cost so marginal in comparison to the overall budget of a Super Bowl Ad.

Something messed up, somewhere. But what was it? and how can it be fixed?

YouTube, not on the bandwagon?

Monday’s newspaper, TV news, and social media news-feeds were filled with “Which was the Best / Worst Super Bowl Commercial of 2011?” often linking to YouTube’s Ad Blitz Channel for our judging and critiquing. “Ooh!” I thought to myself:

“Maybe I can catch those un-captioned commercials here, and watch with YouTube’s awesome caption feature!?“

To my surprise, no captions there, either. Not even the gray CC icon (indicates no cc’s available) or an option for us to opt-in for machine-generated captions.
The “What? What? This is nuts.” words were on auto-repeat through my head.

Walk the Talk.

YouTube, of all video player companies out there, has been committed to the spirit of providing accessible opportunities for people who are deaf and hard of hearing, as well as foreign-language speakers. They made such a big deal out of it, and I still love them for that. But the fact that of all video platforms out there, in light of this heavily-marketed 100%-captioned Super Bowl XLV” campaign, YouTube didn’t join along with NAD, FOX, and the NFL to commit for true accessibility online. I was flabberjasted. Y’all messed up a bit there. But I easily forgive, and I think my 36 million deaf and hard of hearing friends do, too, especially since so many promises have been squashed in front of us before.

Explanation, Please.

So, will someone please, PLEASE come forward and provide an explanation of what happened? There’s a lot of crushed hopes out there. A lot of people who didn’t get some of the jokes from the un-captioned commercial around the office water cooler. Well, for now, we can work together and report our experiences to this survey provided by NAD and the NVRC. Our input should improve these efforts, and maybe work towards an un-flop-able 2012 Super Bowl 100% Commercial attempt.

UPDATE:

It has been brought to my attention that Hulu.com has an “AdZone” for SuperBowl Commercials, and they’re not only provided with English captions, but also Spanish subtitles. I bow to you, Hulu. You exceed my expectations every single time. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” (Repeat that 100 times.) Now you can check out my favorite Super Bowl XLV Commercial: Volkswagen: The Force with both English captions and Spanish subtitles!

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